


It talks in tongues and quiet sighs

by missveils (Missveils)



Series: Inquisitor Dáire Lavellan [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dreams, Fade Dreams, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, References to Depression, ew i wrote a dragon age inquisition fic super cringe, look the quizzy just takes one long nap and is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missveils/pseuds/missveils
Summary: He wonders if it’s better if no one knows what is coming. He sometimes wishes he didn’t.So he sleeps.And he dreams.
Relationships: Lavellan/Solas (Dragon Age), Male Lavellan & Solas, Male Lavellan/Solas, how many ship tags does this have jfc
Series: Inquisitor Dáire Lavellan [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694902
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	It talks in tongues and quiet sighs

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this for @littlegumshoe (on Tumblr) about their lavellan inquisitor, dáire (who’s basically our son since we created him together)

It’s the end of autumn when his steps finally take him to the free marches. Dáire takes a moment to just stand in the middle of the road and feel the world follow its course around him. 

The cobblestones that have laid in the earth for hundreds of years. The same ones he walked on four years prior. In the opposite direction. Away from home. 

The last migrating flocks. The ones he used to study with his clanmates and await the return in spring. He also left at the start of autumn, while the leaves were still yellow-green. 

The sounds coming from the nearby farm. He had always known that they were not welcome there but had walked next to it numerous times. He recognizes two new young voices coming from the fields. 

Dáire finds himself wondering how all this looked like in that world thousands of years in the past, where roads were probably not fixed on the ground, where birds probably did not have a reason to migrate, where the farmer’s children certainly did not exist. The voices try to offer figments of memories of the past, but he tries not to listen, not to see them. 

This is home. He deserves to feel like things have not changed and that the world stands still for this moment. 

When he steps out of the road and into the forest, the sun is setting. The fallen leaves crackle softly under his feet. 

He does not know where the clan’s aravels are at the moment. He knows they’ll be close to Wycombe, but that leaves a big expanse of forest and valleys. 

Still, he walks the invisible paths he has known since childhood, the familiar brooks and clearings. Dáire runs his hands over marks left on the trees and hears the soft hooves of the hallas in the distance. 

He knows he is closing the distance to the aravels when he recognizes the soft footsteps of his clan’s archers following him close behind, almost invisible. His own clothes are clearly Dalish, but he wonders if they recognize him at all. The hair, the arm, his face… If they are young, they would probably not know who he is. 

Yet they let him find the clearing next to a cliff where the aravels rest under the stars. Dáire approaches the camp, stopping to greet one of the hallas as she comes to find him. As he looks up, his eyes meet a familiar figure. One of the outrunners has probably woken the Keeper, and there she stands, on the imaginary line that separates him from home. 

Deshanna walks up to him slowly. If she is worried to see him so changed, he cannot see it in her face. He can only see happiness and relief, as he drops his pack and his staff and is enveloped in a familiar embrace.

“Da’len… Welcome home.” 

She sees the weariness in his eyes and leads Dáire to his old aravel, which has been carried with the rest and left untouched. There, he wraps himself with his blankets and lies awake until the sun comes out and he hears the sounds of the clan waking up. The lighting of the fires, the songs sung by children, the elders teaching their lessons, the gossip between two mothers. 

But he does not leave his aravel. Dáire finds himself in this liminal place, where he finally does not have to face the end of the world head-on, but he also does not have to go back to a world he loves and holds dear. Because, how long will it last? How long until all these voices and songs dissolve into nothingness? 

He wonders if he will know. He wonders if Solas would come and say goodbye one last time before everything ends. He wonders if it’s better if no one knows what is coming. He sometimes wishes he didn’t. 

So he sleeps. 

And he dreams.

He dreams of sleeping under the stars, in some abandoned ruins. He dreams of the people walking these ruins when they used to be a palace. He dreams of the ivy taking over the stone walls. He dreams of the arches slowly sinking under the canopy of the trees. 

He dreams of waking up to the bright eyes of a wolf watching from the treeline. He dreams of trying to get up, but his legs don’t move. He dreams of crawling towards the wolf, outstretching his arm. 

He dreams of the arm he is leaning on disintegrating into dry leaves. He dreams of his face hitting the ground. He dreams of the dark line of trees. 

Other times Dáire dreams of the thousands of lives that reside inside of him now. He dreams of slaves and priests. Of mothers and lovers and children and foes. When he dreams, they all try to push the memories into him and they feel like water closing over his head. They all say the same: 

“I don’t want to be forgotten.”

“I don’t want to be forgotten.”

“I don’t want to be forgotten.” 

So knowing they only live within him, he writes their stories down when he wakes and hopes that keeps them silent for a day. 

It is almost the start of spring when he walks out of his aravel at dawn to meet the Keeper. 

Deshanna welcomes him once again and he sits in the same place near the fire he has always sat in since he was a child.

The Keeper sits behind him and braids his hair and, as she interlaces the locks she asks why his dark hair is white now. Dáire tells her the story of the council and the mark and the Inquisition. 

The Keeper rests her hand on his shoulder and asks softly about his arm. He tells her the story of the Winter Palace and the invasion and the eluvians. 

The Keeper holds his face between her hands and quietly asks about his vallaslin. He keeps quiet. He does not tell this story.

As they speak, the sun comes up and they are slowly surrounded by concerned elders and curious children. 

One child approaches Dáire and rests his hand on his arm. “We’ve missed your stories so much. Do you have any new ones?”

“Da’len, Dáire is probably very tired, and-” the Keeper starts. 

Dáire smiles and turns to the children. 

“Actually, I learned a new story about the Dread Wolf. You’ve probably never heard it before. It goes…”

**Author's Note:**

> Also again, have some illustrations by littlegumshoe (on Tumblr)  
> https://littlegumshoe.tumblr.com/post/612140098373500928/loves  
> https://littlegumshoe.tumblr.com/post/612500779590402048/doodle-idea-for-somethin-maybe-a-companion-to  
> https://littlegumshoe.tumblr.com/post/611938389945647104/aaaaaaaaaaaa-i-dunno-theyre-cute


End file.
